And now we wait...

As we here at the Curtis/Hall household sit around twiddling our thumbs and waiting for Eleanor to show up, I figured I’d do a brief update -- though I don’t know that there’s much to report, beyond the thumb-twiddling.

We saw the doctor yesterday, and she told us, for the second week in a row, that Eleanor should be showing up any second now. In fact, she said she hadn’t expected to see us again after last week. In any case, the updated stats, for those who know what these things mean, are four centimeters and 95%. For those who don’t know what that means, it means Eleanor should be showing up any second now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean she has to. So we twiddle our thumbs.

Meanwhile, Dash continues to enjoy his new school. Every day, he tells us about the books he got to read, who he played with, and that he got to go outside (“Two times!”). Amy got to go to a Back to School Night (I was in class) and chat with his teacher a bit. They all think Dash is a great reader, of course, and have discovered that if they try to skip a page here and there when reading, or change the wording a bit for the benefit of their audience, Dashiell will call them on it. Most importantly, he’s having fun and making new friends -- some of whom he’s started running into around the neighborhood as well, which is pretty cool.

I’m enjoying my school, too, though we don’t get to play outside nearly enough. Each week seems to fluctuate between feeling totally on top of things and feeling utterly lost and incompetent, which is stressful, but somehow it all still seems worthwhile. Our legal system, good or bad, is fascinating, and however inadequate I may feel, I know I’m slowly but surely getting the hang of it.

Amy, of course, is just tired of being pregnant. She’s still working both jobs, though her leave of absence from the library starts Tuesday, no matter what Eleanor does. She’s also been cleaning a lot, not wanting to have to leave suddenly when the house is a mess and then come home to that from the hospital. It’s a fair concern.

So that’s where we are. Just keep your fingers crossed for us and think good thoughts. We’ll spread the word as soon as anything (finally) happens.
 

P.S. In case there’s any confusion: The due date is still four days away, so yeah, we’re probably being prematurely impatient. I blame that doctor for getting our hopes up.

School Days

Dashiell and I have both made it through our first weeks at our new schools, and I think we’re both very happy with them so far. If you want to hear more about my week, you can check out the law school blog (update coming soon), so I’ll focus on Dashiell.

His new school is the Center for Early Education, a brand new program, to which three or four different “home schools” send their 4- to 5-year-olds for what we used to call preschool. It’s a bit farther away than his elementary school will be (only about a mile from the house), so we do have to drive each day, but so far that’s the only downside. On the first day, a 3-hour orientation that he and I both got to attend, Dash could hardly contain his excitement. Walking through the halls of his new “big boy school,” he just gazed around in wonder, with a huge grin on his face, occasionally squealing, “It’s my new school!”

Then we got to his new classroom. We hung up his fancy new backpack on a hook in the hallway and went inside. After locating his name tag on one of the tables (overcoming a moment of confusion when he first went for one reading “Daniel”), the first thing he noticed, of course, was the books. He quickly spotted all the titles he already knew, from home or his old school, and pointed them out to me. Then he and I did a little self-guided tour of the room, checking out the cool play kitchen (which he wouldn’t enter, since there were already kids playing in it), the dollhouse (which he loved), the bathrooms, the cool puppets, and, out the window, the best thing of all: the new playground. He could hardly wait to get to it, and said, “I bet we get to play on it today!” He was right. But first, he and a little girl named Lydia (who, when I addressed her, looked at me like I’d done some kind of incredible magic trick and shrieked, “How did you know my name!” Of course, she was wearing a name tag, too) played with the dollhouse, and a few minutes later, the parents were asked to proceed to the auditorium for their own orientation. Dashiell seemed a little tempted to get clingy, but I could almost see him calculating the weight of his anxiety versus the excitement of all the cool new toys. The toys won, and he let me go without a second thought.

When I returned, Dashiell told me all about the fantastic new playground, how he’d played on the slide, the swings, and the “big orange thing” -- a truly big and orange jungle-gym-like construction made entirely of concrete. Totally old school. He brought me a book I just had to read (twice, it turned out, as another kid showed up toward the end and had to hear the whole story), showed me the toys he’d played with, and told me he did not want to go home. I think the only thing that got him out of there without getting truly upset was the promise that he could come back the next day and spend the whole day there. Even so, he kept looking regretfully over his shoulder and repeating that he didn’t want to leave.

So long story short: he loves it, and all my worries about how much this was going to stress him out were completely groundless. Of course, it helps that one of his friends from Auraria is in the new school, too, though in a different class, and that he can think of it as “moving up” from the little kid school. But mostly, I think, it’s just that he’s an adaptable, easygoing kid. And maybe that’s just how kids are at that age. After all, no one else was having a breakdown or anything, either. Regardless, we’re happy that he’s happy, and that he’s settling right in. Now if he can just handle the new baby sister next month with equal aplomb, we’ll be all set.

Oh, and he of course had his 4th birthday a couple weeks ago as well. He got lots of great stuff from his wonderful family and friends, including the Super Why costume pictured above (the shirt’s just a pajama top), a Hungry Hungry Hippos game he’s been playing almost non-stop, an alligator puppet that now accompanies him almost everywhere, a big boy bike with training wheels, and many other excellent toys. Thank you to all of you for being so generous, and such an important part of Dashiell’s life. You’re truly the best.

Children of the Corn

OK, so it’s just one child. But hey, look at that corn! And that was actually over a week ago -- it’s considerably taller now. We’ve been immensely grateful for the wet spring and summer this year, without which we have no reason to believe anything in our garden would have survived. Not to be hard on ourselves or anything, but let’s face it: we really don’t know what we’re doing.

Regardless, it’s been fun, and watching the plants develop has been fascinating and educational for all of us. For a while there, whenever a new tomato showed up, we all had to run outside and check it out. Now, of course, there are more tomatoes than we ever thought possible, not one of which has actually turned red. Is this normal? Should we worry? We have no idea. Fortunately, we’re willing to wait and learn, and apply our new knowledge to next year’s crop.

And it hasn’t all been mere anticipation. We’ve now eaten spinach, cabbage, a pepper, and two zucchinis grown on our own land, and there are several very ripe-looking cucumbers out there as I write. In addition to the tomatoes, we have pumpkins, honeydew, peppers, and corn in various stages of development. Oh, and the mystery plant. There’s something that looks very similar to, but definitely not the same as, our other squashes, but we didn’t plant it, so we’re just kind of waiting to see what happens there. Whatever it is, it’s doing splendidly, with no assistance from us. And did I mention the sunflowers? I think some of them are taller than me now.

As for the rest of the land, well... How ‘bout that garden, eh?

OK, it’s not developing quite so rapidly. But we’re chopping down the weeds from time to time, and continuing the endless war against the sumacs, and there’s one bit of the property along the fence to the south that we actually hope to turn into something somewhat presentable this year. One step at a time...

Anyway, you can see it for yourself if you come to our Ice Cream Social on the 23rd of August. (Or come by any other time, really. We like visitors.)